After a discussion on FB with GregW, I went through our VIN pages and counted the consecutive unit number batches where a SSP has been documented. Knowing that SSPs were generally produced in batches, I figured that we could identify the batches with known SSPs to come up with an estimate for how many SSPs may be grouped together using the information in our VIN Project.
It is important to note that there are three critical flaws with this logic:
- We know that civilian V8 coupes were sometimes thrown into the mix of known SSP batches. So far, we have seen this occur prior to or just after Ford ran a batch of specific DSO cars. So it is reasonable to believe that there are an unknown quantity of civilian cars as part of the CUN batches containing SSPs.
- For the most part, our Project only lists CUN batches for 3 or more cars. We know that Ford also produced SSP Mustangs in singles or pairs, but it is uncertain how many SSPs were produced in single/double groups. Only known singles or doubles are included in the estimate.
- There are surely CUN batches that we have not identified yet as containing SSP Mustangs, so obviously those batches cannot be included in the estimate at this time.
So using this flawed estimate, we can account for an estimated
10,404 SSP Mustangs.
Despite the flaws, this estimate provides a quick glimpse into how many cars our VIN Project may be able to document. This number will only increase as more SSP Mustangs turn up. When I did this same exercise in 2012, there were only 8,300 SSP Mustangs estimated. But even at 10,404 units we are still quite a bit short of the 15K units that have been widely accepted for SSP production.
NOTE: This is only an estimate and should not be taken as a claim that only 10K were produced by Ford. Unless some documentation miraculously is discovered, we will never know the exact number of SSP Mustangs produced by Ford.